Piraeus Lion: the caged beast of the temple dungeon

The Piraeus Lion was a gigantic lion held in a dungeon beneath the Temple of Ares in Sparta. When a dissenter loyal to Ares fled from Kratos and pulled a lever, the beast was loosed into a sealed arena, and it turned its claws and a stunning roar upon the Spartan before he brought it down.

The beast beneath the temple#

Shortly after arriving in Sparta, Kratos took a secret path toward the Temple of Ares that led him through a dungeon. There he accidentally released a dissenter still loyal to Ares, and gave chase. Searching through the jail, Kratos finally cornered the loyalist in a circular open chamber, where the man was straining at a stuck lever. Before Kratos could seize him, the dissenter wrenched the lever free, sealing the door behind himself, locking Kratos in the arena, and releasing the Piraeus Lion.

The creature was a huge lion, its mane stuck through with arrows, most likely the remnants of an earlier confrontation with the Spartans. It struck at Kratos with its great claws and let out a roar of such intensity that it stunned him, forcing him to cover his ears as his vision blurred and leaving him an easy target until he could recover.

The kill#

The lion was a swift and evasive foe. It leapt away from many of Kratos's attacks and counterstruck after doing so, and it could spring upon him to pin him to the ground with a paw and bite at him until he broke free, kicking it in the face to drive it back. Most of its attacks could not be turned aside, and evasion was the surest answer.

In the end Kratos pulled himself onto the lion's neck and stabbed it there, making it roar in pain, then slid down its body and gutted it, killing the beast. With the lion dead, the door to the fleeing dissenter opened, and Kratos resumed the pursuit, killing the loyalist soon after.